Four excuses media executives give for not tweeting

by Maite Fernandez
Oct 30, 2018 in Social Media

Twitter has been credited with launching revolutions and ruining political careers. That doesn't mean that all media executives embrace it, however.

While reporting on its Reuters Global Media Summit, the international newswire put the spotlight on old media executives who are reluctant to use the microblogging service.

With social media jobs booming, most media watchers see Twitter as career-enhancing (assuming you avoid pitfalls that will get you fired). But here are four reasons media execs gave for not tweeting:

-I’m too private for social media. Although he heads one of the world’s largest publishers of monthlies, David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines, doesn't think anyone wants to know about his personal life.

"For the rest of the world, I don't think they are interested in who I had dinner with ... or where am I going for vacation," Carey said.

-I don’t need to tweet to understand the importance of Twitter. The chief executive officer of Publicis advertising group Maurice Levy, explained that Twitter isn’t for him. The former IT director says that you don't need to use it to understand it.

"I understand how to wash dishes. I don't do it regularly," he noted.

-I’m too busy/old. Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive of marketing communications colossus WPP, said: "I have enough to do answering your emails." He also added: "I'm 66 years old. I'm almost in the glue factory." (He missed the memo on 60 being the new 40, apparently.)

-Brevity is not the soul of my wit. For Arnaud Nourry of Hachette, Facebook is better than Twitter because of space limitations. The long-winded should note that Mark Zuckerberg’s social network recently boosted the character limit for status updates to 63,206 - compared to Twitter’s Haiku-like 140.

"I think communicating with text only with a very limited way of expression is not my style," he said.

What other excuses do media types use for avoiding social media? Which do you think are legit?

Via Reuters